One thing I originally wanted to do on this site was publish favorite recipes so that family members could share. I just haven’t ever gotten around to setting it up. Today I decided to look into it. As a website copywriter and freelance writer, I am constantly aware of the need to avoid plagiarism. Therefore, the first thing I was concerned about was how much a recipe had to be changed before it could be called “mine.”

What I found seems very confusing. The copyright law says:

“Mere listings of ingredients as in recipes, formulas, compounds, or prescriptions are not subject to copyright protection. However, when a recipe or formula is accompanied by substantial literary expression in the form of an explanation or directions, or when there is a combination of recipes, as in a cookbook, there may be a basis for copyright protection.”

The general consensus seems to be that you need to give credit for where ever you got the original recipe before you made your own changes to it. So, for instance, there are probably thousands of Chili recipes out there. Some of them may have unique ingredients, but most just use different combinations of the same standard list of things. These standard ingredients can only be prepared so many ways. It seems to me the descriptions for how to do this are going to overlap very frequently.

How many ways can you say “brown the meat” or “add all the spices?” So, here’s my version of chili. It’s based on personal sampling of many people’s chili over the years and a gradual “let’s try this” attitude over those same years. ( Read more )